


Fatal Plus

by gwyllion



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:57:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written for the Bring Your Fandom to Work Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fatal Plus

_Because I could not stop for Death,  
He kindly stopped for me;  
The carriage held but just ourselves  
And Immortality._   
\- Emily Dickinson

Ennis has never been overly empathetic, but he does think the number of times he has comforted a pre-vet student when they’ve broken down at the sight of an animal euthanasia should qualify him for a degree in psychology.

“When’s the new guy due?” he sighs, softly humming ‘ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall,’ while Cassie shaves the fur from another animal’s leg.

“Any minute now,” Cassie says, sliding her thumb across the animal’s bare skin. She has done this a hundred times today and could use a break. A tall, dark and handsome veterinarian wannabe doing his practical would be just the ticket to allow her to do something more fun like clean up cat puke or scoop the dog crap in the animal shelter’s yard.

Ennis jabs the needle into the vein.

“Release,” Ennis frowns and Cassie loosens her grip on the animal’s leg, “Frigging college kids, they’re all goddamn pussies.” He draws back the plunger. The blood mixes with the blue solution in the syringe and Ennis sends the juice on its one way trip through the circulatory system. Fatal Plus. Sodium Pentobarbital. Designed to kill painlessly. 1 ml per pound.

It occurs to Ennis that most people would find the killing of innocent animals a tragic affair capped with tearful hysterics and mourning, but he only feels tired, desperate to get home and watch some porn or to play his Nintendo, if not for his cramped thumb. It’s been a long day, with hundreds of new arrivals relinquished by their owners. The selection is made by rote because no one with any compassion would really want to play God. Keep the healthy, the friendly, the young. The rest have to make room for the keepers. Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall…

Cassie doesn’t help matters by cooing and petting each unwanted animal as if it were her own beloved pet.

“Oh, you sweet little precious,” she says, a tinge of sadness in her voice.

“You can’t take them all home,” Ennis says, loading up the next syringe.

“That doesn’t keep me from wanting to cuddle them,” Cassie grins.

“Yes, well, this one thanks you for your competence,” Ennis says, as the next animal dozes in eternal slumber.

Ennis has no idea how he got stuck with this job. He was the manager of a successful video store downtown, that is until Netflix and the Red Box drove him to start selling his stock faster than it came in just to make the monthly rent in the strip mall. Pretty soon, he was hosting his own Going out of Business sale and rummaging through the want ads. McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, the SPCA… well, he did love animals after all.

Three years later, Ennis had become so adept at euthanasia that no one else dared take the syringe from his hand. And at this stage of his career, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Why should someone else, someone with responsibility for kids, or school work, or a serious boyfriend, have to take the rap and play the role of the angel of death for the unwanted litters that resulted from people refusing to neuter their pets? It was a necessary unpleasantness, and if it had to be done, Ennis wasn’t going to give someone else the opportunity to screw it up.

“Oh, for Chrissake,” Joe Aguirre says, sticking his head in the door. “You’re not killing animals right now, are you?”

“No, Joe,” Ennis says. “These ones are just sleeping. They’ll be waking up soon, maybe if you stick around long enough you’ll get to save Cassie and me from a zombie attack.”

“Cut the shit, Del Mar,” he says, jutting his chin toward to the dark-haired college student in a lab coat who stood next to him.

“Jack Twist,” the student says, thrusting out a hand and almost knocking the syringe out of Ennis’s grip.

“I’m outta here,” Cassie says with a snap of her gum and before Ennis knows it, she’s shoving past Aguirre, her platform sandals clopping up the wooden stairs.

“He’s all yours Del Mar. And no fooling around. If I catch you fucking off in here, we’ll become a No-Kill shelter and you’ll be out of a job.”

Now would be a good time for Ennis to quit his job, with Aguirre’s threats becoming more dramatic every day. But one look at the banks of pet carriers stacked outside the euthanasia room door, and he knew today wasn’t the day. Who would kill the animals, if he wasn’t there to do it right?

The faint sound of mewls and snuffles fades when Joe shuts the door leaving Ennis alone with the newbie.

“Ennis,” Ennis says tossing the syringe into his left hand to meet Jack’s right with a handshake.

“Your folks just-”

“Del Mar.” 

“Huh?”

“That’s what some people call me. Del Mar.”

“Hmmm… There used to be a video shop in town. Del Mar video?”

Ennis nods, noticing for the first time the color of the student’s eyes which smile at him from their lash-encircled sockets. They were blue. But not just any blue. Ennis wouldn’t describe them as sky blue or cerulean blue. They were more like… that’s it, Ennis thought- they were Fatal Plus blue, as blue as the DEA restricted Schedule III drug that he used to ply his trade.

“That’s me,” Ennis says.

“Or that _was_ you before you became Dr. Death.”

“Hey, watch your mouth. I’m licensed to kill, you know.”

“Very funny,” Jack says. “I bet you know a million lines like that one.”

“But only a few are my favorites,” Ennis replies, looking down at Jack’s hand that still squeezed his own.

Jack must notice that he holds Ennis’s hand too long because the crinkly lines his eyes make when he smiles disappear all of a sudden. He pulls his hand away as if he touched fire, just as Ennis’s gaydar shoots through the roof.

“Alright, then,” Ennis coughs, plopping the next animal’s crate onto the table. “This one will be easy.”

Ennis leans over to peer into the crate, and Jack does the same, their heads almost touching as they look inside. The animal seems half-dead already. The victim of a hit and run, it has been waiting for relief since the Animal Control Officer scooped it up off the roadside with a shovel earlier this afternoon.

Ennis calculates the animal’s weight and figures out how much juice it will take to knock it down. It wouldn’t be so difficult if he weren’t so distracted by the smell of Jack’s shampoo. He wonders if it’s Aveda, but he doubts a college student could afford that. But he is pre-vet, Ennis thinks, contemplating the smell of rosemary and mint.

“Watch the teeth,” Ennis says, tossing Jack a pair of Kevlar gloves. “These badgers can be crazy nastyasses when they want to be.”

Ennis opens the crate and the animal tries to hide in the rear corner. With expert hands, Ennis pulls the critter out. Its claws scramble for a few strokes against the Formica tabletop.

“Hold its head down like this,” Ennis demonstrates. “It calms them if you cover their eyes.”

Jack complies and the animal only snarls a little while Ennis shaves a patch of fur from its hind leg. He can almost hear Jack’s heart beating out of his chest above the hum of the electric clippers. An instant later, the badger’s pain has been vanquished and he joins the other critters in the freezer, bagged and tagged and destined for the pet cemetery.

“What?” Ennis says, unable to stop noticing that Jack has a few fillings in his rear molars because of the way his mouth hangs open.

“That was it?” Jack asks.

“Painless.”

“Quick.”

“Peaceful.”

“Easy.”

“They don’t call it euthanasia for nothin.” 

Jack had a smug look on his face, but Ennis knew that wouldn’t last for long. It was time to get into the meat of the assignment. If Jack was going to make it as a veterinarian, he’d have to deal with animals of every breed and temperament and some of those animals would require a dose of Fatal Plus as the only cure for what ills they suffered.

“Don’t forget, that animal was injured. It would have died on the side of the road, if we didn’t take care of it.”

“Aw, shit,” Jack says. “I know what you’re getting at. Let me guess, there’s ones who aren’t sick? Right? Perfectly healthy creatures that must meet their maker just because there are too many of them? Nothing wrong with them at all. Maybe there are too many orange kitties at the shelter today. Or a dog chewed the furniture and the owner doesn’t want it anymore. Right?”

“Yep.”

“That’s crazy,” says Jack burying his head in his hands as he rests his elbows on the table. “I could never do that. I love animals too much.”

Ennis puts down the syringe and pets Jack’s shoulder. He feels bad for him, getting flung into this on his first day of practical. His shuddering breaths make Jack’s shoulders rise and fall. Ennis leans over so his mouth is opposite Jack’s ear.

“Sure you could. You don’t look like such a bad guy to me,” Ennis says.

“What are you talking about?” Jack’s eyes are red and his lips curl quizzically with the thought.

“You think you could never do it, but you can,” Ennis says. His hand rubs slow circles on Jack’s back, the warmth of his hand passing through the stiffness of his lab coat. “When you consider the alternative.”

“Why are you saying that?” Jack asks, his breath puffing against Ennis’s face because he is so close. It smells like caffeine and Altoids, and that weird ginseng-flavored bubble tea.

Ennis’s eyes roved Jack’s face in search of understanding. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he breathes. “Sometimes the euthanasia technician is the only kind voice the animal hears, and theirs are the only comforting hands that the animal feels, sometimes for its whole life. If you had to euthanize an animal, you could do it, whether they are healthy or not.”

“I suppose when you put it that way,” Jack says with a heavy snort. He moves closer, letting Ennis’s hands continue their stroking.

Ennis spreads his legs a little to allow Jack to stand in the open space between his feet and to give his cock some room to stretch. His breath is hot on Jack’s cheek. “It takes a special person,” Ennis says. “Someone extraordinarily kind.”

Jacks hands rub long lines up and down Ennis’s arms. “But what about the healthy ones, or the ones who aren’t in need of an animal PTSD psychiatrist? Can’t they go to a No-Kill shelter? ” he asks with heavy lids closing over those Fatal Plus eyes.

Ennis presses himself against the length of him, hands sliding down to cup his ass through the scrub pants which do nothing to hide his desire.

“No-Kill shelters are good for business,” he breathes against Jack’s lips. “But think about what they really do, in order to call themselves No-Kill.

“Like what?” asks Jack. “Tell me,” his hands slide behind Ennis’s neck and fist at his hair. 

“It just means that they refuse to take the animals in unless they’re perfect,” says Ennis, his words sliding into Jack’s mouth. “When they’re not, they just send them here to me or they get abandoned on the side of the road, get used for target practice, or worse.”

“Well, you can’t let that happen, I suppose,” Jack plunges his tongue into Ennis’s mouth and Ennis couldn’t be happier.

“Better off that they bring their animals here,” Ennis says, breaking away to stroke his fingers along Jack’s cheeks. “Even if I have to put them down, at least I don’t have to worry about those ones reproducing and making more of a good thing.”

“So what are you doing tonight, after you’re done here?” Jack asks, pushing away the shirt to press sucking kisses into Ennis’s collarbone. “There’s something about you, Del Mar, I'm dying to spend time with you.”

And as Ennis leaned in for another kiss, thoughts of the coming evening danced through his head. “Naah, I’m not that exciting,” he gasps. “I'd probably just put you to sleep.”


End file.
